By Paula Pyzik Scott
Bluffton Icon owner-editor

When Christmas decorations start appearing after Halloween, I’m apt to feel a little Scrooge-ish. “Bah humbug!” When Christmas music starts to play downtown, I ping-pong between the two camps that exist in town: sometimes I love it and sometimes I wish I could pull the cord.

This Christmas, I am woefully behind in my preparations. It’s December 22 and my shopping isn’t finished and there are no decorations up at the Scott home. No live tree, no lights on the porch.

Thankfully, my work at the Icons has kept me flush with Christmas cheer. At Ada’s Merry on Main celebrations, my heart melted as I snapped a photo of a wee babe in its mother’s arms, gazing at the sparkle of a Christmas tree. For the Blaze of Lights, I perched myself on a ladder at the corner of Main and Church streets to live stream the parade on Facebook and the holiday spirit simply flowed around me.

Perhaps my favorite Bluffton tradition is the Christmas Open House at the Schumacher Homestead. This year I timed my visit for dusk, when the farmhouse is filled with firelight and candlelight. The scene is sweet and soothing. Although my photos are all over the Icons, I’m not a photographer; I’m a writer with a camera. Still, it’s a treat to try to capture that golden hour at the Swiss House.

There are Bluffton holiday traditions that I have yet to savor, including the Messiah at Bluffton University. I need to rewatch the Gift of Giving with a reporter’s eye and camera. After the December Bluffton Area Chamber of Commerce meeting, stories started to flow about the creation of the synchronized light show that plays in the parking lot across from Harmon Field. Put that on my to-do list.

I did find the time recently to listen to Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol and highly recommend the www.Librivox.org version by reader Kara Shallenberg. It also lifted my spirits and prepared me to quote Dickens: “A merry Christmas to everybody. A happy New Year to all the world.”